• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2009

The capacity spectrum method (CSM), which is known to be an approximate technique for assessing the seismic capacity of an existing structure, was originally proposed for simple building structures that could be modeled as single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems. More recently, however, CSM has increasingly been adopted for assessing most bridge structures, as it has many practical advantages. Some studies on this topic are now being performed, and a few results of these have been presented as ground-breaking research. However, studies have until now been limited to symmetrical straight bridges only. This study evaluates the practical applicability of CSM to the evaluation of irregular curved bridges. For this purpose, the seismic capacities of 3-span prestressed concrete bridges with different subtended angles subjected to some recorded earthquakes are compared with a more refined approach based on nonlinear time history analysis. The results of the study show that when used for curved bridges, CSM induces higher inelastic displacement responses than the actual values, and that the gap between the two becomes larger as the subtended angle increases.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.23-32
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• 2007

The goal of this study is to perform several bending tests on a shape memory alloy bar and to analyze the characteristics of the bending behavior. The other goal is to verify the seismic performance of an SMA bar bending application. Single and double bending tests were conducted with varying loading speeds and maximum displacement. The loading and the unloading stiffness were estimated from the force-displacement curves and the equivalent damping ratio of each test was also assessed. In single bending, the SMA bar showed the stiffness hardening after the displacement of 32 mm. It is assumed that this phenomenon is due to the stress-induced-martensite hardening. The increasing loading speed did not influence on the stiffness of the single bending SMA bar. The stiffness of the double bending bar is about 5 times of that of the single bending. This study introduced a seismic application of SMA bending bars as seismic restrainers for bridges and showed its practicality. SMA bars in bending are used for seismic restrainers in a three-span-simply-supported bridge. They showed the effectiveness to reduce the responses of the bridge and the applicability for a seismic restrainer. The significance of this study is to provide basic knowledge of SMA bending and its seismic applications.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.367-374
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• 2019

We investigate the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the response of LNG storage tanks to vertical seismic excitation depending on the type of foundation. An LNG storage tank with a diameter of 71 m on a clay layer with a thickness of 30 m upon bedrock, was selected as an example. The nonlinear behavior of the soil was considered in an equivalent linear method. Four types of foundation were considered, including shallow, piled raft, and pile foundations (surface and floating types). In addition, the effect of soil compaction within the group pile on the seismic response of the tank was investigated. KIESSI-3D, an analysis package in the frequency domain, was used to study the SSI and the stress in the outer tank was calculated. Based on an analysis of the numerical results, we arrived at three main conclusions: (1) for a shallow foundation, the vertical stress in the outer tank is less than the fixed base response due to the SSI effect; (2) for foundations supported by piles, the vertical stress can be greater than the fixed base stress due to the increase in the vertical impedance due to the piles and the decrease in radiation damping; and (3) soil compaction had a miniscule impact on the seismic response of the outer tank.